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What It Is

The term “Blob” cropped up years ago when reformers began trying to work with the education establishment and ran smack into the more than 200 groups, associations, federations, alliances, departments, offices, administrations, councils, boards, commissions, panels, organizations, herds, flocks and coveys, which collectively make up the education industrial complex.

Taken individually they were frustrating enough, with their own agendas, bureaucracies, and power over education. But taken as a whole they were (and are) maddening in their resistance to change. Not really a wall — they always talk about change — but rather more like quicksand, or a tar pit where ideas slowly sink out of sight leaving everything just as it had been.

They could have been called any number of things: a puddle, a maze, a swamp, a big fat fluffy feather pillow, but BLOB is what stuck. It’s really nothing personal, just descriptive shorthand, like calling accountants “bean counters” and Pentagon officials “brass hats,” and our friends in the blob (yes, we have blob friends) all seem to accept it with good humor. Still, to avoid hard feelings, when we describe the groups that make up the education establishment, we call them the Big Learning Organization Bureaucracies, or… BLOB.

What We Believe
We believe that the special interests that draw funds from the tax dollars funding public education, and that have become an intransient force in political and policy circles, have outlived the usefulness of the associations they once had and have become obstacles to programs and activities that can best and most judiciously serve children. Such groups—from teachers unions, to the associations of administrators, principals, school boards and hybrids of all (e.g., “The Blob”)—should be free to organize but without access to the dollars that are spent to fund schools and should be free to recruit but not mandate members, but they should not have a public stream of money that permits the dues of members to subsidize their defense of the status quo.

Latest Updates

 
Buffalo Union Stands In Way Of Teacher Evaluations
The New York district stands to lose money for failing schools since the union won't sign off on a teacher evaluation agreement.
 
Adelanto School Board Blocks Parent Trigger
The first parent trigger attempt in Compton, California, failed, but that hasn't stopped Desert Trails elementary parents from pursuing better educational opportunities for their kids.
 
AAE Supports Union Power Check
The Association of American Educators testifies in favor of a bill that penalizes Utah districts that fail to comply with current law allowing all education associations equal access to schools.
 
Christie-Union Clash Reaches New Level
Videographers lurk outside New Jersey Education Association headquarters in hopes of trying to catch NJEA executive director, Vincent Giordano, in another embarrassing moment after his controversial voucher comment.
 
Closing Protest Gets Personal
The Chicago Teachers Union is behind the protest at Mayor Rahm Emanuel's house, according to press releases handed out by CPS officials.
 
Teaneck’s Terrible Twenty
The Garden State Virtual Charter School , a proposal by New Jersey residents looking to provide more personalized learning for their children, was attacked by educrats and denizens in their little hamlet of Teaneck and beyond, for trying to do something, well, different.

Resources

The Education Intelligence Agency provides quick, accurate information concerning the public education establishment. EIA Communique is a weekly email containing the latest news, data and information on the education establishment.
http://www.eiaonline.com/

UnionFacts has launched Teachers Union Facts, which is 100 percent dedicated to revealing the ways teacher unions are blocking educational reform and are “putting their focus on teachers rather than on the students they teach.”
http://teachersunionexposed.com/